# Why is validating someone's feelings so hard to do? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 4, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-validating-someones-feelings-so-hard-to-do/687650 "2014-05-04T17:06:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-validating-someones-feelings-so-hard-to-do/687650/61 "2014-05-08T13:07:30Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > I think we’re on the same page. Go back and read my post again about choosing the most appropriate feeling for our situation and how others can help us with that. > > But I have to repeat that feelings are facts. They truly are real. Let me try an example: > > Feel abandoned by your friends? (You’ve made a false assumption. They all still care about you but each of them has some kind of a crisis at present and you don’t know it.) So you have tension and anger and your stomach may feel queasy. It is a fact that you are experiencing a feeling. Even if you “shouldn’t feel that way.” > > Later you talk this over with someone and find out what was happening and you are able, with more information, to alter your feeling about what happened. Perhaps you have a feeling of security now. > > Feelings are such a fact in our lives that they can make us physically ill. I hope that nit-pick makes it more clear to you what I was saying. I understand where you’re coming from, but as humans, we’re really good at bullshitting ourselves and making stuff up that suits our narrative. If I want to feel like an abandoned martyr, I can make myself feel that way. In fact, half of the feelings I have are because of things that I make up in my own head or stuff I don’t want to deal with. So I stress myself out until I either have the information I need to get over it, or I just get over it. (FWIW, I’m the queen of psychosomatic symptoms. I get migraines, jaw pain from clenching, stomach problems, the whole ball of wax. Most of it is based on the bullshit I tell myself.) ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-validating-someones-feelings-so-hard-to-do/687650/62 "2014-05-08T22:39:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > / One of the problems with communicating ideas and paths to others is Context. We each have our own Personal Context, made up of our subjective experiences, our knowledge, the ideas and experiences we’ve picked up from reading and other media, etc. When I say a word, it has a meaning within my personal context that I could not hope to convey to you in my lifetime. I have to hope that it has at least something of the same meaning within your context. When it doesn’t, you don’t understand fully what I am saying. (Welcome to the World, eh?) > > As we get older, assuming we have been at least moderately intellectually active and aware, our Personal Context is much more complex, much more full. So we may have bits of advice that came from our personal experiences, or from the experiences of those we have known, or from what we have seen and read. The unfortunate part is that advice may come packed with a lot of assumptions based on that prior experience, or our personal context, and have little or nothing to do with the other person’s current experience. > > And why do old people ramble like this? Trying to explain their Personal Context. 😛 Thanks for taking some time to dissect my thoughts a bit. **MsRobyn** , I don’t know you well enough to tease you so I’ll just say I’ll bet you are skilled at the sciences. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-validating-someones-feelings-so-hard-to-do/687650/63 "2014-05-10T19:36:52Z")
If you’re in a close relationship with someone, it’s hard for them to validate your feelings when you’re feeling emotional. Depending upon the context, they wind up feeling attacked, then _they_ go on the attack. Case in point: a few hours ago, I had an argument with my husband. It started out innocuously enough. I was just trying to figure out how we could go out to lunch and do all the other shit we needed to do. What usually happens is the kids gravitate toward me and to avoid conflict we both just let it happen. It doesn’t bother me until it does and today it did. When it bothers me, every other time in the two months since it bothered me last bubbles to the surface and I wind up venting. My beef isn’t really with him. It’s with the way things tend to pan out and the fact that I rarely get an opportunity to finish a thought. It adds up and after a while I boil over. I boiled over in spectacular fashion today and as a result, he felt like he was attacked and responded in kind. Which is why we’ve kind of stayed in our separate corners the last couple of hours. It’s funny because my first thought was to pit about it. But I pit about it about every two months because that’s about how often it happens. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-validating-someones-feelings-so-hard-to-do/687650.md?page=3)